Seoul: After suffering through his worst outing of the 2025 Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) season on July 5, Lotte Giants starter Park Se-woong ran into his manager Kim Tae-hyoung in the team hotel lobby. Park had just surrendered eight runs on 11 hits, including three home runs, in only four innings against the Kia Tigers. He was sitting at 8-1 with a 2.25 ERA after his first nine starts through May 11, but then a sudden spiral that began the following week seemingly hit rock bottom on that July night.
According to Yonhap News Agency, Kim, whose at-times flippant way of talking belies his player-friendly nature, sensed an opportunity to pump his slumping pitcher's tires. "He said, 'Hey, you've won a few games already this year. Just go out and pitch,'" Park recalled their brief encounter Wednesday. And Park went out and pitched a strong game on this night for his first start since July 5, holding the Kiwoom Heroes to a run over seven innings and striking out six in a 4-1 win at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul. He improved to 10-6 and lowered his ERA from 5.38 to 5.10.
"I knew the manager wanted to make sure I wouldn't get down on myself too much," Park said. "I appreciated that he still had trust in me. I wanted to reward him for that and I was able to pitch with confidence tonight." In an eight-start span from May 17 to July 5, Park served up 43 runs in 39 1/3 innings, for an ERA of 9.84, a highly uncharacteristic stretch for one of the better South Korean starters in the KBO over the past five years.
Park, who is known to pore over advanced statistics before and after each outing, said he tried to stay away from numbers and instead focus on his mechanics during the recent downturn. "There have been games when I wasn't as aggressive as I should have been," he said. "And also, I've had many instances where some batted balls found holes and ended up being hits. But overall, I should've been able to put pitches where I wanted them."
Against the Heroes on Wednesday, the 29-year-old right-hander pitched like his old self again. He did not walk a batter for the first time since his season debut on March 23. Park threw 95 pitches, 66 of them for strikes. He offered 35 four-seam fastballs, 23 sliders, 22 forkballs and 15 curveballs, and said he was pleased with his command for every pitch in his arsenal.
The Heroes created some traffic on the base paths but Park wiggled his way out of those jams nearly every time. In the first, Lee Ju-hyoung singled and stole second to get himself into scoring position with two outs, before Park got Choi Joo-hwan to ground out. After a three-up, three-down second inning, Park pitched around a two-out double by Song Sung-mun in the third.
Park nailed Lee with a pitch in the leg to begin the fourth inning but got three quick outs. After another clean inning in the fifth, Park erased Song's leadoff double with a double play ball in the sixth inning. Lee once again singled and swiped second base, only to have Park retire Choi on a flyout to center.
The Giants took a 4-0 lead into the bottom seventh when Park gave up his only run of the game, via Oh Sun-jin's two-out double. Park quickly regrouped and punctuated his strong outing by striking out Eo Joon-seo with his 95th pitch of the night, a down-and-in curveball.
The victory snapped the Giants' two-game losing skid. At 49-42-3 (wins-losses-ties), they remained in third place, as they pursue their first postseason trip since 2017. "We have to try to go even higher. I want to have a good finish to the regular season and play in the postseason, too," Park said. "Just because I pitched well tonight, it won't mean I will be as good every game. But I will try to build on this momentum."